aix live updates

5th

October 2015

AIX Live Update Starting with AIX Version 7.2, the AIX operating system provides the AIX Live Update function which

eliminates downtime associated with patching the AIX operating system. Previous releases of AIX

required systems to be rebooted after an interim fix was applied to a running system. This new

feature allows workloads to remain active during a Live Update operation and the operating system

can use the interim fix immediately without needing to restart the entire system. In the first release

of this feature, AIX Live Update will allow customers to install interim fixes (ifixes) only. Ultimately it

may be possible to use this function to install AIX Service Packs (SPs) and Technology Levels (TLs)

without a reboot.

IBM delivers kernel fixes in the form of ifixes to resolve issues that are reported by customers. If a fix

changes the AIX kernel or loaded kernel extensions that cannot be unloaded, the host logical

partition (LPAR) must be rebooted. To address this issue, AIX Version 7.1, and earlier, provided

concurrent update-enabled ifixes that allowed deployment of some limited kernel fixes to a running

LPAR. Unfortunately not all ifixes could be delivered as concurrent update-enabled. The AIX Live

Update solution is not constrained by the same limitations as in the case of concurrent update

enabled ifixes. The AIX 7.2, Live Update feature will allow customers to install ifixes without needing

to reboot their AIX systems, avoiding downtime for their mission critical, production workloads.

This article will discuss the high-level concepts relating to AIX Live Updates and then provide a real

example of how to use the tool to patch a live AIX system. I was fortunate enough to take part in an

Early Ship Program (ESP) for AIX 7.2. During the ESP I had the opportunity to test the AIX Live Update

feature. Ill share my experience using this tool in the example that follows.

AIX Live Update Concepts Live Update is the next generation in AIX Live Update technology. The development team set out to

provide an innovative tool for patching, that could leverage existing AIX maintenance models and

tools, such as emgr and installp. The tool was designed to allow for non-disruptive updates for all

AIX components, such as the kernel, commands and libraries. The starting point was for ifixes only

but longer term the goal will be to provide non-disruptive updates for SPs and TLs.

To achieve this goal, the AIX Live Update function utilises whats known as original and surrogate AIX

LPARs. An AIX Live Update operation is started on the original partition. Another LPAR is provisioned

(automatically) and will become the surrogate partition. This partition is patched, live, while your

workloads continue to run on the original partition. At a point in time, the workload is migrated from

the original partition to the new patched surrogate partition. Essentially the partition undergoes a

checkpointing process in which the workload is paused and its current state is saved (for all

running processes). Once the checkpointing is complete the processes are migrated to

(restarted/un-paused on) the new partition. The checkpoint saves and validates the status of the

current workload and then starts its back up on the other LPAR in this saved state. This is similar to

Workload Partition Live Application Mobility which was introduced with AIX 6.1 in 2007.

The ifix is applied on the surrogate LPAR and the running workload is transferred from the original

partition to the surrogate partition. There are several critical steps in a Live Update operation, these

are listed below:

The root volume group of the original partition is cloned using standard AIX alternate disk

management utilities.

The ifix is applied on the cloned volume group that serves as the boot volume group for the

surrogate partition. This disk is assigned to the new surrogate partition from which it boots a

minimal AIX environment.

After the surrogate partition is booted and while the workloads are still running on the

original partition, the root volume group of the surrogate partition is mirrored.

The workload processes are checkpointed and moved over to the surrogate partition.

Workloads resume on the surrogate partition in a chrooted environment on the mirrored

volume group. During this process, the workloads continue to run without being stopped,

although there is a short blackout time when they are suspended.

The following diagram provides a basic overview of the components of a Live Update environment

for AIX 7.2.

Figure 1 AIX Live Update components

The AIX Live Update operation can be launched using the geninstall command with the k flag or

through the Network Installation Manager (NIM) or the System Management Interface Tool (SMIT).

You configure AIX Live Update by modifying the stanzas in the

/var/adm/ras/liveupdate/lvupdate.data file. A template of this file is supplied with AIX 7.2, called

/var/adm/ras/liveupdate/lvupdate.template. You must copy and edit this file to reflect your own

configuration. The geninstall command uses a lock file, /usr/lpp/.genlib.lock.check, to guarantee

that no other Live Update process can run simultaneously. The Live Update operation runs in one of

the following modes:

Preview mode

In preview mode, estimation of the total operation time, estimation of application blackout

time, and estimation of resources such as storage and memory are provided to the user.

These estimations are based on the assumption that the surrogate partition has the same

resources in terms of CPU, memory and storage as the original partition. All the provided

inputs are validated and the AIX Live Update limitations are checked.

Automated mode

In automated mode, a surrogate partition with the same capacity as the original partition is

created, and the original partition is turned off and discarded after the AIX Live Update

operation completes.

The mirror copy of the original root volume group (rootvg) is retained after the AIX Live Update

operation is complete. Thus, if you want to return to the state of the system before applying the ifix,

the LPAR can be restarted from the disk that was specified as the mirror volume group.

The main item to consider is that there must be sufficient resources (CPU and memory) available in

your environment for a second copy or clone of your partition to be created during the AIX Live

Update process.

Planning for Live Updates on AIX If you plan to use Live Update in your AIX 7.2 environment, the following minimum requirements

must be met.

AIX Live Update is currently only supported with ifixes.

All I/O devices must be virtualized (virtual Ethernet, Virtual Small Computer System Interface

(VSCSI) or N-Port Id Virtualisation (NPIV) with AIX multipath I/O (MPIO)).

Temporary CPU and memory is required (on the same frame).

Two disks required:

1. Initial boot disk for surrogate (freed after subsequent AIX Live Update or reboot).

2. New rootvg (mirrored/split during AIX Live Update) old_rootvg can be freed after AIX

Live Update.

The following system firmware, Hardware Management Console (HMC) and Virtual I/O Server (VIOS)

levels must be installed for AIX Live Update to function and be supported in your environment.

System firmware

Ax730_066*

Ax740_043*

Ax770_063

Ax773_056

Ax780_056

Ax810 or later

* Limitation: PowerVC cannot seamlessly manage the updated LPAR

HMC

840

Virtual I/O Server

2.2.3.50

2.2.4.0

RSCT (if required)

3.2.1.0

PowerHA (if required)

7.2.0

PowerSC (if required)

1.1.4.0

The following is a list of currently known requirements and limitations with AIX Live Update.

Support for ifixes only, including kernel and kernel extension ifixes (no SPs or TLs).

The AIX administrator must be able to authenticate with the HMC before updating. The

hmcauth utility should be used to establish this authentication prior to the AIX Live Update

process starting.

There must be at least 2 paths to storage (half of the paths will be removed during update).

Not intended for updates of an Oracle RAC or DB2 PureScale cluster node. RSCT cluster

services will be stopped during the update.

In a PowerHA environment the node will be unmanaged during the AIX Live Update

operation.

Only JFS2 and NFS file systems supported.

Workload must be able to accommodate the blackout period. The blackout time is the

duration when the running processes are paused during the AIX Live Update operation. The

blackout time can be estimated by running the AIX Live Update operation in preview mode.

Transmission control protocol (TCP) connections will be maintained. Protocols like TCP use a

back-off retransmit timeout that allows TCP connections to remain active during the

blackout time, so the blackout time is not apparent to most workloads.

Preview mode will estimate the blackout time (in seconds).

The lpar_id value changes as a result of the AIX Live Update operation. You can request a

specific lpar_id value in the lvupdate.data file, but it cannot be the same as the original

value.

I/O restrictions

Any Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI) device must not be open during

the AIX Live Update operation.

No physical or virtual tape or optical device is supported. These devices must be

removed before the AIX Live Update operation can proceed.

The mirrorvg utility can mirror up to 3 copies. If the root volume group of the

original partition is already being mirrored with 3 copies, the AIX Live Update

operation cannot proceed.

The AIX Live Update operation is not supported on diskless AIX clients.

The AIX Live Update operation is not supported in a multibos environment.

Data Management API (DMAPI) is not supported by the AIX Live Update feature.

VSCSI support for the AIX Live Update operation is only for those logical unit

numbers (LUNs) that are backed by physical volumes, not logical volumes.

VSCSI disk support excludes the option where the VSCSI server adapter can be

mapped to any partition or partition slot.

At the time of writing (September 2015), Shared Storage Pool (SSP) disks are not

supported with AIX Live Update and VSCSI clients. Attempting a Live Update

operation on an AIX partition with SSP hdisks will fail. This is intended to be a

supported environment. In the interim NPIV storage or VSCSI disks backed by whole

disks is supported.

Security restrictions

The AIX Live Update operation is not supported when a process is using Kerberos

authentication.

The AIX Live Update feature does not support PowerSC Trusted Logging.

The AIX Live Update feature is not supported by an active Department of Defence

(DoD) security profile.

The AIX Live Update feature is not supported when audit is enabled for a stopped

workload partition (WPAR).

The AIX Live Update feature does not support Public-Key Cryptography Standards #

11 (PKCS11). The security.pkcs11 fileset cannot be installed.

The AIX Live Update feature is not supported by any of the following Trusted

Execution options in the trustchk command:

TEP=ON

TLP=ON

CHKSHLIB=ON and STOP_UNTRUSTD=ON

TSD_FILES_LOCK=ON

Reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) restrictions

System trace of the AIX Live Update operation is not possible if channel 0 is

already in use.

The AIX Live Update feature is not supported when ProbeVue is running. The

ProbeVue session needs to be stopped to run the AIX Live Update operation.

User storage keys are not supported in the AIX Live Update environment.

Any system dump that is present on the root volume group of the original

LPAR is not available after a successful AIX Live Update operation.

Miscellaneous restrictions

The ifix must have the LU CAPABLE attribute, which means the ifix must be

compatible with the AIX Live Update operation. The emgr command can

display this attribute. Ideally, all the ifixes can be applied with the AIX Live

Update operation, but there might be some exceptions.

The location of the ifix files must be on the root volume group of the client

partition in either /, /usr, /home, /var, /opt, or /tmp file systems.

Network File System (NFS)-mounted executables must not be running during

a AIX Live Update operation.

Active WPARs must be stopped before the AIX Live Update operation.

RSCT Cluster Services are stopped during AIX Live Update operations, and

then restarted before the AIX Live Update operation completes.

A configuration with 16 MB page support is not allowed. The promoted (16

MB Multiple Page Segment Size (MPSS)) pages by Dynamic System

Optimizer (DSO) are supported by the AIX Live Update operation.

The AIX Live Update operation is supported when the DSO running, but DSO

optimization is reset by the AIX Live Update operation. The optimization

begins again based on workload monitoring after the AIX Live Update

operation.

The AIX Live Update feature is not supported on a partition that participates

in Active Memory Sharing (AMS).

The AIX Live Update feature is not supported on a remote restartable

partition.

If an ifix is installed, without the AIX Live Update operation, that requires a

restart, the restart must be completed before a subsequent AIX Live Update

operation can be started.

Please refer to the AIX Knowledge Centre for the latest information on known limitations and

current requirements.

In my Power Systems lab environment I had the following configuration and levels installed:

HMC V8R8.4.0.0. Early ship code.

VIOS 2.2.3.52

AIX 7200-00-00-0000. Early ship code.

Disks 3 disks. 1 x rootvg and 2 x spare disks. SAN LUNs presented via SAN Volume Controller (SVC) to both VIOS.

Dual VIOS s824vio1 and s824vio2.

Server POWER8 S824.

System Firmware SV810_081, FW810.10.

Performing AIX Live Updates on AIX

In the following example I will show you how to patch a live AIX system using AIX Live Update. Ill

start with an unpatched AIX 7.2 system. There are no ifixes installed. I also checked how much spare

capacity (CPU and memory) I would need available on my system before starting the process. In this

case Id need 0.1 processing units and 2GB of memory. Support for live update is provided by the

bos.liveupdate.rte fileset.

# oslevel -s

7200-00-00-0000

# lslpp -L bos.liveupdate.rte

Fileset Level State Type Description (Uninstaller)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

bos.liveupdate.rte 7.2.0.0 C F Live Update Runtime

# emgr -l

There is no efix data on this system.

# lparstat -i | egrep 'Online Mem|Entitled Capacity '

Entitled Capacity : 0.10

Online Memory : 2048 MB

The AIX development team provided a dummy ifix for me to use in my testing during the ESP. Ill

use this ifix in my example. You can determine if an ifix is AIX Live Update capable by previewing the

fix with the emgr command and checking the LU CAPABLE attribute.

# ls ltr /tmp/cg/dummy/dummy.150813.epkg.Z

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 35625 Aug 20 16:30 dummy.150813.epkg.Z

root@aix721534A / # emgr -p -e /tmp/cg/dummy/dummy.150813.epkg.Z | grep LU

LU CAPABLE: yes

Three disks were assigned to my AIX partition. All were VSCSI hdisks, backed by SAN LUNs on both of

my VIOS. There were two spare disks (hdisk2 and hdisk3) which I could use with the AIX Live Update

process. All disks were 50GB in size.

# lsdev -Cc disk

hdisk1 Available Virtual SCSI Disk Drive



# lspv

hdisk1 00f94f58cc2de28d rootvg active

hdisk2 00f94f58c90ae057 None

hdisk3 00f94f58c90ae0db None

# echo cvai | kdb -script

read VSCSI_scsi_ptrs OK, ptr = 0xF1000000C0126DF0

(0)> cvai

Executing cvai command

NAME STATE CMDS_ACTIVE ACTIVE_QUEUE HOST

vscsi0 0x000007 0x0000000000 0x0 s824vio1->vhost3

vscsi1 0x000007 0x0000000000 0x0 s824vio2->vhost5

End of execution for cvai command

(0)> Executing q command

# getconf DISK_SIZE /dev/hdisk1

51200


51200


51200

I confirmed that there were two paths to each of my disks and that each disk was mapped across

both of my VIOS.

root@aix721534A / # lspath

Enabled hdisk1 vscsi1






$ hostname

s824vio1

$ lsmap -vadapter vhost3

SVSA Physloc Client Partition ID

--------------- -------------------------------------------- ------------------

vhost3 U8286.42A.214F58V-V1-C90 0x00000063

VTD vtscsi0

Status Available

LUN 0x8100000000000000

Backing device hdisk7

Physloc U78C9.001.WZS01K8-P1-C6-T1-W5005076801404F98-L6000000000000

Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi5

Status Available

LUN 0x8200000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi6

Status Available

LUN 0x8300000000000000


Physloc U78C9.001.WZS01K8-P1-C6-T1-W5005076801405173-L7000000000000

Mirrored false

$ hostname

s824vio2



--------------- -------------------------------------------- ------------------

vhost5 U8286.42A.214F58V-V2-C91 0x00000063

VTD vtscsi0

Status Available

LUN 0x8100000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi5

Status Available

LUN 0x8200000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi8

Status Available

LUN 0x8300000000000000



Mirrored false

I ensured that none of my file systems were full, particularly /var, where the AIX Live Update process

would log all of its activity.

# df -g

Filesystem GB blocks Free %Used Iused %Iused Mounted on

/dev/hd4 0.36 0.19 48% 11436 21% /

/dev/hd2 2.28 0.20 92% 41276 45% /usr

/dev/hd9var 1.34 1.13 17% 3739 2% /var

/dev/hd3 1.09 1.01 8% 766 1% /tmp

/dev/hd1 0.02 0.02 3% 7 1% /home

/dev/hd11admin 0.12 0.12 1% 5 1% /admin

/proc - - - - - /proc

/dev/hd10opt 0.03 0.02 52% 223 6% /opt

/dev/livedump 0.25 0.25 1% 4 1% /var/adm/ras/livedump

The AIX Live Update process must be able to communicate with your HMC in order for it to control

the original and surrogate LPARs. The root user must be able to authenticate to the HMC that

manages the partition. You can authenticate to the HMC by using the hmcauth command or by

defining an HMC object through NIM. The hmcclientliveupdate HMC role has all the privileges that

are required for the AIX Live Update operation. If a user is defined on the HMC with this role, the

authentication can be done with this user rather than the hscroot user. In my lab, I ran the hmcauth

command to authenticate with my HMC as the hscroot user (as shown below).

# hmcauth -a hsc02 -u hscroot -p abc1234

#

# hmcauth -l

Address : 10.1.50.30

User name: hscroot

port : 12443

TTL : 20:25:41 left

I configured the AIX Live Update data file with the appropriate information for my environment. I set

the mode to preview. I set nhdisk to hdisk2; this is the name of the disk that will be used to create a

copy of the original rootvg and boot the surrogate partition. I set mhdisk to hdisk3; this is the name

of the disk used for the mirrored rootvg on the surrogate partition. I chose 98 as the new lpar_id for

the surrogate partition and I entered the appropriate HMC user name (user) and IP address

(management_console) for my environment.

# vi /var/adm/ras/liveupdate/lvupdate.data

general:

mode = preview

kext_check = no

disks:

nhdisk = hdisk2

mhdisk = hdisk3

tohdisk =

tshdisk =

hmc:

lpar_id = 98

management_console = 10.1.50.30

user = hscroot

I performed a preview of the AIX Live Update operation using the geninstall command with the k

and p flags. This performed a number of pre-flight checks, each of which passed.

# geninstall -k -p -d /tmp/cg/dummy dummy.150813.epkg.Z

Validating live update input data.

Computing the estimated time for the live update operation:

-------------------------------------------------------

LPAR: aix721534A

Mode: F

Blackout_time(s): 77

Global_time(s): 624

Checking mirror vg device size:

------------------------------------------

Required device size: 7216 MB

Given device size: 51200 MB

PASSED: device size is sufficient.

Checking new root vg device size:

------------------------------------------




Checking temporary paging space device size:

------------------------------------------


Checking temporary dump device size:

------------------------------------------


Validating the adapters and their paths:

------------------------------------------

PASSED: adapters can be divided into two sets so that each has paths to all disks.

Checking other requirements:

------------------------------------------

PASSED: sufficient space available in /var.

PASSED: sufficient space available in /.

PASSED: no existing altinst_rootvg.

PASSED: rootvg is not part of a snapshot.

PASSED: pkcs11 is not installed.


PASSED: The trustchk Trusted Execution Policy is not on.

PASSED: The trustchk Trusted Library Policy is not on.

PASSED: The trustchk TSD_FILES_LOCK policy is not on.

PASSED: the boot disk is set to the current rootvg.

PASSED: the mirrorvg name is available.

PASSED: the rootvg is uniformly mirrored.

PASSED: the rootvg does not have the maximum number of mirror copies.

PASSED: the rootvg does not have stale logical volumes.

PASSED: all of the mounted file systems are of a supported type.

PASSED: this AIX instance is not diskless.

PASSED: no Kerberos configured for NFS mounts.

PASSED: multibos environment not present.

PASSED: Trusted Computing Base not defined.

PASSED: no local tape devices found.

PASSED: live update not executed from console.

PASSED: the execution environment is valid.

PASSED: enough available space for /var to dump Component Trace buffers.

PASSED: enough available space for /var to dump Light weight memory Trace buffers.

PASSED: all devices are virtual devices.

PASSED: No active workload partition found.

PASSED: nfs configuration supported.

PASSED: HMC token is present.

PASSED: HMC token is valid.

PASSED: HMC requests successful.

PASSED: Provided LPAR ID is available.

PASSED: A virtual slot is available.

PASSED: RSCT daemons are active.

PASSED: no Kerberos configuration.

PASSED: lpar is not remote restart capable.

PASSED: no virtual log device configured.

PASSED: lpar is not using shared memory or ams resources are available.

PASSED: the disk configuration is supported.

PASSED: no Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunnel configured.

PASSED: Firmware level is supported.

PASSED: vNIC resources available.

INFO: Any system dumps present in the current dump logical volumes will not be available after

live update is complete.

To perform the actual Live Update operation I first needed to change the mode from preview to

automated in the lvupdate.data configuration file. Then I was able to start the Live Update process

on my running system. The need to manually change the mode was required only during the ESP and

should not be necessary when AIX 7.2 becomes generally available. I watched as the process first

validated the LPAR environment was suitable for live updates, and then it created a clone of the root

volume group for booting the surrogate. The surrogate LPAR was booted next and a mirror of the

original rootvg created and assigned to the surrogate, followed by a migration of the running

workload to the surrogate partition. After the blackout time had ended, the workload was now

running on the surrogate partition. At this point the original LPAR was shut down and deleted.

# perl -pi -e 's/= preview/= automated/g' /var/adm/ras/liveupdate/lvupdate.data

# cat /var/adm/ras/liveupdate/lvupdate.data

general:

mode = automated

# geninstall -k -d /tmp/cg/dummy dummy.150813.epkg.Z

Validating live update input data.

Computing the estimated time for the live update operation:

-------------------------------------------------------

LPAR: aix721534A

Mode: F

Blackout_time(s): 77

Global_time(s): 670

Checking mirror vg device size:

------------------------------------------




Checking new root vg device size:

------------------------------------------




Checking temporary paging space device size:

------------------------------------------


Checking temporary dump device size:

------------------------------------------


Validating the adapters and their paths:

------------------------------------------

PASSED: adapters can be divided into two sets so that each has paths to all disks.

Checking other requirements:

------------------------------------------

PASSED: sufficient space available in /var.

PASSED: sufficient space available in /.

PASSED: no existing altinst_rootvg.


PASSED: pkcs11 is not installed.


PASSED: The trustchk Trusted Execution Policy is not on.

PASSED: The trustchk Trusted Library Policy is not on.

PASSED: The trustchk TSD_FILES_LOCK policy is not on.

PASSED: the boot disk is set to the current rootvg.

PASSED: the mirrorvg name is available.

PASSED: the rootvg is uniformly mirrored.

PASSED: the rootvg does not have the maximum number of mirror copies.

PASSED: the rootvg does not have stale logical volumes.

PASSED: all of the mounted file systems are of a supported type.

PASSED: this AIX instance is not diskless.

PASSED: no Kerberos configured for NFS mounts.

PASSED: multibos environment not present.

PASSED: Trusted Computing Base not defined.

PASSED: no local tape devices found.

PASSED: live update not executed from console.

PASSED: the execution environment is valid.

PASSED: enough available space for /var to dump Component Trace buffers.

PASSED: enough available space for /var to dump Light weight memory Trace buffer

PASSED: all devices are virtual devices.

PASSED: No active workload partition found.

PASSED: nfs configuration supported.

PASSED: HMC token is present.

PASSED: HMC token is valid.

PASSED: HMC requests successful.

PASSED: Provided LPAR ID is available.

PASSED: A virtual slot is available.

PASSED: RSCT daemons are active.

PASSED: no Kerberos configuration.

PASSED: lpar is not remote restart capable.

PASSED: no virtual log device configured.

PASSED: lpar is not using shared memory or ams resources are available.

PASSED: the disk configuration is supported.

PASSED: no Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunnel configured.

PASSED: Firmware level is supported.

PASSED: vNIC resources available.

INFO: Any system dumps present in the current dump logical volumes will not be a

Non-interruptable live update operation begins in 10 seconds.

Broadcast message from root@aix721534A (pts/0) at 09:28:43 ...

Live AIX update in progress.

....................................

Initializing live update on original LPAR.

Validating original LPAR environment.

Beginning live update operation on original LPAR.

Requesting resources required for live update.

............

Notifying applications of impending live update.

Creating rootvg for boot of surrogate.

....................................................................

Starting the surrogate LPAR.

....................................

Creating mirror of original LPAR's rootvg.

........................................

Moving workload to surrogate LPAR.

................

Blackout Time started.

..............................................................................................

..............

Blackout Time end.

Workload is running on surrogate LPAR.

....................................

Shutting down the Original LPAR.

........

................

The live update operation succeeded.

Broadcast message from root@aix721534A (pts/0) at 09:40:40 ...

Live AIX update completed.

The AIX Live Update process completed successfully and the ifix was installed, as shown by the emgr

output below.

# emgr -l

ID STATE LABEL INSTALL TIME UPDATED BY ABSTRACT

=== ===== ========== ================= ========== ======================================

1 ST dummy 09/14/15 09:38:56 Test fix for Live Update

STATE codes:

S = STABLE

M = MOUNTED

U = UNMOUNTED

Q = REBOOT REQUIRED

B = BROKEN

I = INSTALLING

R = REMOVING

T = TESTED

P = PATCHED

N = NOT PATCHED

SP = STABLE + PATCHED

SN = STABLE + NOT PATCHED

QP = BOOT IMAGE MODIFIED + PATCHED

QN = BOOT IMAGE MODIFIED + NOT PATCHED

RQ = REMOVING + REBOOT REQUIRED

The AIX error report showed messages for the start and successful completion of the AIX Live

Update operation. The entire process took approximately 11 minutes to complete, all the while my

workload remained active and was not disrupted.

# errpt -NLVUPDATE

IDENTIFIER TIMESTAMP T C RESOURCE_NAME DESCRIPTION

12295E0B 0922152915 I S LVUPDATE Live AIX update completed successfully

9A74C7AB 0922151815 I S LVUPDATE Live AIX update started

While the AIX Live Update operation was taking place, I noticed on my HMC, that a new AIX partition

was created, with id 98. The original LPAR was renamed and _lku0 appended to its name.

Figure 2 New surrogate partition created. Original partition renamed with _lku0 appended.

Figure 3 Surrogate partition booting.

Figure 4 AIX started on the surrogate partition.

Figure 5 Surrogate and original partitions both running.

Figure 6 Moving workload from original to surrogate partition. Signified by led 000e on both LPARs.

Figure 7 Original partition shutdown after successful workload migration to surrogate partition.

Figure 8 Original partition deleted. New partition running the workload. New partition ID.

From the AIX command line, I was able to verify the partition ID had changed, as expected, from 99

to 98, using the uname command (as shown below).

Before AIX Live Update # uname -L

99 AIX72_Build_1534A

After AIX Live Update # uname -L

98 AIX72_Build_1534A

The black out time was short. I noticed my topas sessions paused for a period of time (27

seconds) while the workload migration to the new partition was performed.

Topas Monitor for host:aix721534A EVENTS/QUEUES FILE/TTY

Mon Sep 14 15:13:20 2015 Interval:2 Cswitch 415 Readch 97.8K

Syscall 1914 Writech 14387

CPU User% Kern% Wait% Idle% Physc Entc% Reads 79 Rawin 0

Total 5.0 14.3 0.1 80.6 0.04 37.034 Writes 121 Ttyout 600

Forks 3 Igets 9

Network BPS I-Pkts O-Pkts B-In B-Out Execs 3 Namei 140

Total 20.1K 116.5 171.0 8.49K 11.6K Runqueue 0.50 Dirblk 0

Waitqueue 0.0

Disk Busy% BPS TPS B-Read B-Writ MEMORY

Total 1.7 177K 40.50 76.0K 101K PAGING Real,MB 2048

Faults 843 % Comp 56

FileSystem BPS TPS B-Read B-Writ Steals 0 % Noncomp 25

Total 110K 174.5 97.7K 12.4K PgspIn 0 % Client 25

PgspOut 0

Name PID CPU% PgSp Owner PageIn 24 PAGING SPACE

java 8913316 1.1 64.9M root PageOut 0 Size,MB 512

topas 8782148 0.5 3.80M root Sios 25 % Used 2

getty 7274990 0.3 656K root % Free 98

sshd 9044346 0.2 1.23M root NFS (calls/sec)

clcomd 8126756 0.1 1.73M root SerV2 0 WPAR Activ 0

iostat 4653484 0.1 508K root CliV2 0 WPAR Total 0

gil 1507634 0.1 960K root SerV3 0 Press: "h"-help

sshd 5439772 0.0 1.23M root CliV3 0 0 0uit

Topas Monitor for host:aix721534A EVENTS/QUEUES FILE/TTY

Mon Sep 14 15:13:47 2015 Interval:2 Cswitch 29915 Readch 18.1M

845 Syscall 837762 Writech 16.2M

080 User% Kern% Wait% Idle% Physc Entc% Reads 6766 Rawin 0

Total 13.5 42.6 2.9 41.0 1.38 1381.75 Writes 2769 Ttyout 752

Forks 155 Igets 192

Network BPS I-Pkts O-Pkts B-In B-Out Execs 155 Namei 2412

Total 22.6M 5.27K 5.27K 21.2M 1.46M Runqueue 0.50 Dirblk 0

Waitqueue 0.0

Disk Busy% BPS TPS B-Read B-Writ MEMORY

Total 6.2 21.5M 506.5 7.05M 14.4M PAGING Real,MB 2048

Faults 33279 % Comp 40

FileSystem BPS TPS B-Read B-Writ Steals 0 % Noncomp 11

Total 0 0 0 0 PgspIn 5127 % Client 11

PgspOut 0

Name PID CPU% PgSp Owner PageIn 7903 PAGING SPACE

ksh 6881644 7.5 800K root PageOut 3537 Size,MB 512

sbiod 4391024 7.2 896K root Sios 11441 % Used 2

mcr 4522026 4.6 1.75M root % Free 98

rtcmd 3866794 1.8 512K root NFS (calls/sec)

vtiol 786456 1.3 704K root SerV2 0 WPAR Activ 0

j2pg 1966152 0.1 3.62M root CliV2 0 WPAR Total 0

topas 8782148 0.1 3.81M root SerV3 0 Press: "h"-help

sshd 9044346 0.0 1.23M root CliV3 0 0 5126uit

I also noticed that during the AIX Live Update process, as expected, only a single path was configured

for my disks on the original LPAR. The other path was configured on the surrogate LPAR at this time,

as the AIX Live Update process booted the new LPAR.

# lspath




On the second VIOS, s824vio2, I noticed that the vhost5 adapter was now mapped to the new

partition ID 62 (98 in decimal).

$ hostname

s824vio2



--------------- -------------------------------------------- ------------------

vhost5 U8286.42A.214F58V-V2-C91 0x00000062

VTD vtscsi0

Status Available

LUN 0x8100000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi5

Status Available

LUN 0x8200000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi8

Status Available

LUN 0x8300000000000000



Mirrored false

After the AIX Live Update process finished, the vhost adapter mapping on both VIOS showed all disks

mapped to the new partition ID. The partition ID changed from 99 (63 in Hex) to 98 (62 in Hex). And

all of the disk paths on the LPAR were restored to two paths per disk (as shown by the lspath

command on the AIX partition).

$ hostname

s824vio1



--------------- -------------------------------------------- ------------------

vhost3 U8286.42A.214F58V-V1-C90 0x00000062

VTD vtscsi0

Status Available

LUN 0x8100000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi5

Status Available

LUN 0x8200000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi6

Status Available

LUN 0x8300000000000000



Mirrored false

$ hostname

s824vio2



--------------- -------------------------------------------- ------------------

vhost5 U8286.42A.214F58V-V2-C91 0x00000062

VTD vtscsi0

Status Available

LUN 0x8100000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi5

Status Available

LUN 0x8200000000000000



Mirrored false

VTD vtscsi8

Status Available

LUN 0x8300000000000000



# lspath







All AIX Live Update operations are logged to the /var/adm/ras/liveupdate/logs directory. You can

find a full set of detailed logs in this location, useful for troubleshooting Live Update operations. The

snap command can also be used (with the U flag) to collect AIX Live Update information and save it

in the /tmp/ibmsupt/liveupdate directory, which could be shared with IBM support if they need to

assist you in troubleshooting an issue with AIX Live Update.

# ls -ltr

total 71512

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 230727 Sep 12 06:23 oplhmclog.2015-09-12_06:23:04.364

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 165165 Sep 12 06:23 lvupdlog.2015-09-12_06:23:04.364

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 230727 Sep 12 06:25 oplhmclog.2015-09-12_06:25:21.559

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 3043257 Sep 12 06:27 olhmclog.2015-09-12_06:25:21.559

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 36357 Sep 12 06:27 olvupdlog.2015-09-12_06:25:21.559

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 3310341 Sep 12 06:27 otlog.2015-09-12_06:25:21.559

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 3490422 Sep 12 06:27 lvupdlog.2015-09-12_06:25:21.559

..etc...

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 230769 Sep 21 15:07 oplhmclog

-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 165260 Sep 21 15:07 lvupdlog

If, for some reason, I needed to return the system to its previous state before the AIX Live Update

operation, the fastest way to achieve this is to boot the partition from the original rootvg disk. All I

need do is set the boot list to point to the original rootvg hdisk and reboot the system. The system

will restart, unpatched.

# lspv

hdisk1 00f94f58cc2de28d rootvg active < Patched rootvg disk

hdisk2 00f94f58c90ae057 None < Original rootvg disk

hdisk3 00f94f58c90ae0db lvup_rootvg < Surrogate boot disk

# bootlist -m normal -o

hdisk1 blv=hd5 pathid=1

# bootlist -m normal hdisk2

# shutdown Fr

# emgr -l

There is no efix data on this system.

# lspv

hdisk1 00f94f58cc2de28d None < Patched rootvg disk

hdisk2 00f94f58c90ae057 rootvg active < Original rootvg disk

hdisk3 00f94f58c90ae0db None < Surrogate boot disk

Conclusion The aim of this article was to introduce and demonstrate the new AIX Live Update feature of the AIX

7.2 operating system. In the example above I showed you how to perform an AIX Live Update using

the AIX command line tool geninstall. More information can be found in the AIX Knowledge Centre.

AIX Live Update is a powerful new feature which will allow customers to take another step towards

their continuous availability goals for their mission critical, production AIX environments. I look

forward to the future enhancements and capabilities that are yet to come with this tool.

Acknowledgement

The author sincerely acknowledges David Sheffield (IBM Senior Technical Staff Member, AIX

Operating System Architect) for reviewing this article and providing his valuable suggestions

and feedback.

Job Title: AIX and Power Systems Client Technical Specialist

Email: [email protected]

Bio: Chris Gibson is a Power Systems Client Technical Specialist at IBM Systems. Located in

Melbourne, Australia, he has co-authored several IBM Redbooks on AIX. Chris contributes to the

AIX community through his AIX blog and Twitter (@cgibbo).

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/cgaix?lang=en

Abstract: This article describes how to use the new AIX Live Update feature of the AIX 7.2

operating system. You will learn how to avoid downtime on your mission critical workloads when

patching the AIX OS. General concepts will be discussed, followed by an example of how to use the

tool.

aix live updates

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